5 Things I Did to Create a Life I Love (That You Can Do, Too!)

If you’re reading this, I’m guessing you’re in the same place I was two years ago: dying for forward motion in your life, yet feeling either incapable of making that happen, or fearful of what you might lose if you do.

This post is going to give you some helpful tips on self improvement and how to help your self when you’re feeling stuck in life. It’s sprinkled with tidbits about me to provide you with some real life examples and to show you why I’m offering this specific advice.

“If you don’t like where you are, MOVE. You are not a tree!”

– Jim rohn

This quote by Jim Rohn (who I honestly didn’t know of until I googled “change + tree quote”) was perhaps one of the most inspirational things I stumbled across on Pinterest several years back. It encouraged me because I was incredibly unhappy with my life, but kept creating excuses about why I couldn’t make the changes I knew needed to be made.

Then, good ole’ Jim spoke, and he said: “MOVE.” So I did. Mentally and physically.

My Journey (short version):

I grew up in a tiny town in the middle-ish of California. After junior college, I moved down south to attend a private college in along the coast and get my bachelor’s degree in journalism. Life changed for the better—I was happier, I was out of my year-and-a-half toxic relationship, I was at peace and doing well in school.

Then, I moved back home after graduation aaand basically just jumped right back into old habits. Small town syndrome is real, y’all.

I was back with my ex, back to working part-time at a frozen yogurt shop, depressed, full of self-loathing and struggling with self-harm. So yeah, you could say I hated where I was in life.

I felt 100 percent stuck, and was holding onto a victim mentality, as if I had no say in how my life was going.

The truth is, I knew exactly what I needed to do to change my life—it was just going to take wasting a lot of time before I pulled the trigger.

Fast forward three years and I am back living on the coast. I just celebrated my one year anniversary dating the man of my dreams and am now working a full-time job at a local community magazine.

So, how did I go from being “stuck” in old, unhealthy habits and falling into old patterns to living a full and happy life? And how do you get unstuck enough to do the same? Keep reading to see the self help tips I applied to my life.

1. Take a leap of faith & make the first move

The first movement is often the hardest. It is so, so tempting to allow feelings of fear or unworthiness paralyze us from doing anything at all. You may feel unqualified or unprepared, or be living in the mindset that “This is the way it’s always been, why should I get my hopes up and think anything’s going to be different now?”

Friends, that is the exact mindset that the spirit of defeat wants you to have. Don’t buy into it. Even if you aren’t presently feeling optimistic that great things can happen, make the first move anyway.

When I lived in my small home town, I knew I needed to leave in order to create a better life for myself. So, I printed out a dozen resumes, drove to San Diego and started applying at entry-level jobs: coffee shops, frozen yogurt shops, clothing & retail shops, even a plant nursery.

I didn’t have any idea where I’d live if I was hired, all I knew was I had to do something. That decision got me hired at the coffee shop where I would meet my boyfriend, and gave me enough income to stay afloat living along the coast.

So, what’s your first move?

Even just me asking that question probably sparked at least one or two thoughts in your mind of things you’ve been trying to tell yourself you don’t really need to do in order for you to start loving your life.

Remember: the first move does not have to be something huge or life-altering in and of itself. Accepting a job at a coffee shop was not that crazy of a move; it was just the first step of many that I took to get to where I wanted.

Let me encourage you to take this whole “getting unstuck” thing one small step at a time. If you try to change your entire life overnight, you might get overwhelmed and give up. Everyone moves at their own pace, and a small step is better than none.

2. Get out of your comfort zone

Maybe you feel like you have no nerve at all; moving away, quitting your dead-end job or breaking up with your Disney-Prince-Turned-Villain is all just too complicated. You might not like where you’re at, but at least it’s familiar.

The fact is, you’ll almost always find a reason to stay in the same place, despite knowing in your heart and gut that you should leave, move, or make some other kind of change. Make up your mind to do the hard thing whether you feel like it or not. Because the hard truth is the universe doesn’t care if you’re scared. It cares about what you’re going to do about it.

I’ve learned that sometimes, it’s better to uproot your life for the possibility of a better one, than to play it safe and live each day stuck in the same habits, with the same people, living a mediocre lifestyle.

If the term “uprooting” was a little intimidating, don’t worry. You don’t need to do everything all at once. Start with small ways to get out of your comfort zone.

It’s okay if all you can manage at first is creating small, but significant changes. After all, it’s the small details that can make for an overall abundant life. Self improvement isn’t going to happen overnight, which is true with most of the best things in life.

Start small when aiming for big change

For example, I was not entirely comfortable with my body the past couple years, and decided I needed to make some changes. One small change I made was to stop drinking so many of my daily calories.

Are you also looking to keep the calories down and stay in good shape? Check out my post on the best habits to stay fit!

My first step was to start ordering my lattes half-sweet. My second step was switching to coconut milk. Then, I switched to coconut milk lattes only sweetened with stevia. Eventually, I got to a place where I could enjoy my coffee without milk at all! I still drink it with stevia, though 😉

In other words, that simple change I made to drinking lower-calorie coffees made me feel really good about myself, and I actually felt better in my body overall. I felt less yucky after drinking a lighter, less sweet coffee that I didn’t have to feel guilty over. That small change was an accomplishment for me!

Change is hard, so even when you’re making the most minor of adjustments, don’t stop yourself from being proud of them.

3. You have to believe you can

The victim mentality I mentioned in my second point is often the biggest and baddest killer of forward motion, and a big reason people stay stuck.

If you want to change your life, you have to believe you can.

I know you’ve heard this quote before:

“She believed she could, so she did.”

This is honestly one of the biggest keys to making life-altering changes for yourself. If with every change you make you tell yourself “This isn’t going to work,” or “This change isn’t going to stick,” you are self-sabotaging.

Oftentimes in situations when we are feeling defeated, we are our own worst enemy. We beat ourselves down, we doubt our abilities, and we allow ourselves to hang on to the mentality that we are not in charge of our own lives.

True, we can’t control every aspect of our lives. But we can absolutely control the way we respond to challenging circumstances and difficult people.

How to improve your relationship with yourself

According to experts, such as Dr. John Gottman of The Gottman Institute, in a healthy/stable relationship it takes 5 positive encounters to offset 1 negative encounter.

That ratio of 5:1 is true for yourself, too. You have the ability to re-train your negative and defeated mindset by intentionally and consciously thinking/speaking 5 positive things about yourself for every time you find yourself thinking negatively.

So, if you think, “I’m not strong enough to really make this big change in my life,” either speak or jot down on a piece of paper 5 ways that you are strong.

Or, write down 5 obstacles you’ve already overcome. Remind yourself that you are a total Bad A, and tell yourself:

Nothing and no one can get in my way. Not even me.

4. Say “Yes!” to opportunities

Like I said before, humans generally resist change, even if change is what we really want. Change is scary, even the good kind.

Getting a promotion at work is great, but there’s always the slight anxiety that we won’t measure up or be able to handle the new responsibility. Moving to a new and nicer town can be exciting, but you may experience that fear of being the new kid on the block.

We can be tempted to reject opportunities for change under the guise that the opportunity isn’t really what we’re looking for, when what’s actually going on is our subconscious is trying to keep us safe in a familiar place.

In my case, I had to say yes to a pretty strange living situation after I accepted the coffee shop job. I ended up renting a room from a former professor… who also lived with another professor and a guy I used to go to college with. Sooo, that was three dudes.

My mom was not pleased. But I said yes to the opportunity because I was desperate to get out of my town, and this decision, like the coffee shop, ended up helping me on my way to genuinely enjoying my life.

What opportunities are you saying no to?

It could be something small, like a friend continuously inviting you out to do something fun, but you always turn her down because you’re a bit shy around new people.

Or it could be something bigger, like saying yes to a trip overseas (for work, for a mission with your church, just for fun, etc.). Maybe it’s time to channel your inner Bilbo Baggins, step out of your hobbit hole, and see where adventure takes you.

Sometimes, saying yes is the only thing keeping you from the rest of your life.

5. Be patient

When things start changing, sometimes they’ll all change at once. But other times, they take a while. Self improvement and overall life improvement often involves a couple steps forward and one step back.

I worked part time in that busy coffee shop for six months, making breakfast sandwiches, handing out the wrong drink orders at the drive thru window and generally getting about 5 hours of sleep before showing up to work at 5 a.m. every day. Living the big city life was anything but glamorous.

Finally, after months of working as a freelancer for a magazine on the side, the editor reached out and offered to hire me full-time. I was elated. But what if I’d given up on a journalism career after just 4 or 5 months of freelance articles? What if I decided the coffee shop was beneath me just because I had a college degree?

(By the way, having a college degree and not getting to use it immediately after college–or ever–is not something to feel bad about. Your path is not going to look like everyone else’s, and that’s alright! We’d all be bored as heck if that were the case.)

Waiting for change is a crucial part of forward motion. That’s not to say you should sit around, crossing your fingers that a new life is going to fall in your lap. You have to put things in motion, like I stated in Point #1. But once you start moving pieces, take a deep breath and understand that major life changes take some time. And that’s okay.

6. Make yourself a priority

I’m a chronic people-pleaser. It’s true, and it’s a pretty dire diagnosis. I am constantly struggling with babysitting everyone’s feelings before giving my own desires or boundaries a second thought. I’m working on it, but holy frijoles, it’s a huge challenge for me.

Are you a people-pleaser too? This post from the blog Solutions to All Your Problems is about how to find your authentic self when you’ve lost yourself to people pleasing. It offers some excellent tips for people like you and me.

You cannot get unstuck when you are putting everyone before you. Sometimes, we create our own prisons simply because we’re too busy handing out keys to the prison gates for everyone else, and we forget to let ourselves escape.

There are times when you have to be selfish before you can adequately take care of other people. Self improvement and life-long change doesn’t happen without YOU getting involved in the process.

You know how on airplanes, when the pilot instructs everyone that should the plane’s cabin depressurize, each person must secure his or her own mask before helping others with their masks? That’s kind of how you have to be in life.

Putting yourself first sometimes helps everyone

Here are some examples of times you may find yourself putting others before yourself in a way that might do more harm than good.

• Your friend is going through a bad break up or some other difficult life change, but you’ve been struggling with depression. You might not have the emotional energy to offer help, and that’s okay.

• You have a test you have to study for, but another friend needs help writing an essay for a class. It’s okay to tell that friend you have to put your own education first.

• You’re constantly stressed and envy your friends who go to a yoga class once or twice a week. Your family encourages you to take some time to yourself, but you insist “there’s just too much to do.”

The truth is, you’re not always helping the situation by ignoring your own needs.

Break down your schedule and figure out what you can do without one day out of the week. Make that time for yourself.

You cannot help people when you are feeling spread too thin. Not forever, at least. It’s simply not a sustainable way to live, and eventually you’ll find yourself feeling overwhelmed. I guarantee your loved ones do not want you to neglect yourself just to look out for them.

The big idea:

The point is that this is all in your hands, lovelies.

Maybe you can’t make the drastic decisions I’ve mentioned due to the many, many circumstances I’m unaware of in your particular situation. But everyone has the power to change their lives to some degree, even in small ways.

Don’t allow yourself to be defeated before you even try.

Start small.

• Take care of your needs first;
• Shift your mindset from a victim mentality to a warrior mentality;
• Say yes to new opportunities;
• Make some small goals for yourself. Work out once a week, go to one therapy session, hang out with one friend, learn one new skill. Even if it’s as seemingly insignificant as learning to make the perfect omelet. (Please don’t laugh at me, but that’s honestly on my to-do list).

I believe in you. I don’t have to know you on a first name basis yet to know that we are all so much more powerful than we often choose to believe. If you can just start somewhere, I know you can get un-stuck and make it anywhere.

Have you ever had to dig yourself out of a life rut? What did you do to get yourself out? Let me know in the comments below, and share your own self improvement tips!

Thanks for reading, friends! Until next time,

<3 Sav

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